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OPINION: Abdulkareem, The Deaf And His Son

Published

6 months ago

April 15, 2025

By Suyi Ayodele

Hans Christian Andersen (April 2, 1805 – August 4, 1875), the Danish fiery-tales author once quipped: “Where words fail, music speaks.” This quote summarises the transformative power of music to address issues mere words of mouth could not convey. Music, as Literature, is deep.

The African society of old relied more on music, especially derisive songs, to address social misconducts and speak truths to power. The various festival songs in the African Indigenous Religion AIR) are composed as conveyors of the society’s disapproval of inappropriate behaviours by those in authority.

One analysis of Andersen’s quote above says that music on its own has an inherent ability “to convey emotions, tell stories, and communicate a range of human experiences without relying on verbal communication. It serves as a universal language that can touch the depths of our souls and transcend the limitations of words alone. At its core, the quote emphasizes the limitations of language while highlighting the boundless potential of music.”

I once heard a tale of a man who drew the sword and beheaded a drummer for using the instrumentality of the sounds of his talking drum to address an infraction the valiant once committed. Bards and raconteurs too, had in the past, incurred the fury of monarchs and those in authority and paid dearly for their boldness to show kings the pus oozing from the royalty’s eyes.

Whatever you want the deaf to hear, our elders advise that we should say it to the hearing of his child. Whether clinically or deliberately deaf, the favourite child has a way of getting the people’s messages across to his deaf father. The deliberately unfeeling leaders have their weak points in their favourite children. That is why, when the people are pushed to the wall, they say the unprintable things about their leaders to the hearing of the leaders’ children.

There is always a favourite child in every family. That is the type of child who has the ears of his parents, especially the father. For one to get the head of such a family’s attention, it is advisable to go through the favourite child.

I once led a group of my colleagues in my last employment to the palace of a traditional ruler in Esanland, Edo State, to resolve a naughty community issue affecting our company’s operations in his domain. We waited for close to three hours without seeing the monarch. Everyone who had gone into the inner recesses of the palace to inform the king of our presence came back with the same assurance: “The Onojie will see you soon.”

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: Uromi Killings And Sandalili Nursery Rhyme

We were almost losing hope of having an audience with the monarch when a young lady sauntered out of the inner chamber to the open court. An elderly man, who knew when we came into the palace, beckoned on me and whispered that we should approach the lady and ask for her assistance. The princess, he said, was the only one who could get the monarch to attend to us.

As the lady was about to enter the inner chamber again, I approached her. We exchanged pleasantries and I explained our mission and how long we had waited to see her father. I pleaded that she should help tell the monarch that we were still waiting. She was a charming, beautiful damsel. And very mannerly, too. She promised to help and went inside.

About 15 minutes later, the lady emerged again, walked up to where we were clustered and asked us to follow her. She led us to a different section of the palace where we met the Onojie on his throne. We paid the necessary homage, and the monarch waved us to our seats and apologised for keeping us waiting. He also asked the princess to wait to hear our petition.

In less than 30 minutes, we were through. The monarch approved all our proposals and asked the princess to take us to another man, a chief, who would implement the decisions. We left the palace happily because we encountered the king’s favourite child who took our case to her father. It is true that omo ina laa ran si ina (you send a fiery child to a fiery father)

The last two years have been terrible in all ramifications for Nigerians. The pains and agony occasioned by the misgovernance of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, are just unimaginable! The man, called Jagaban, has succeeded in substituting his promise of hope with the acute reality of hopelessness! We have cried; we have wailed. Tinubu and his government remained deaf to our plights; eternally pococurante! Very sad!

Then one of us got wise and went back to the ancient wisdom of our forebears. This man realised that deaf and sadistic as Tinubu and his government are, there is a spoiled brat of the President who could take our message of pain to his father. He decided to explore that line of ancient communication that for whatever we want the deaf to hear and understand, we should say it to the hearing of his child. And not just any child of the deaf, this time around, it must be the favourite child of the deaf. The man went to the studio and waxed an album.

This is what the iconoclast, Eedris Abdulkareem, did with his latest hit album: “Tell Your Papa.” Abdulkareem is not new to protest songs. He once drew the attention of the General Olusegun Obasanjo’s government to the shenanigans going on in the country under the watch of Ebora Owu, when the artiste sang: “Nigeria Jaga Jaga.”

In that 2004 album, Abdulkareem said that insecurity had taken over the entire nation and everything was like the ‘higgledy-piggledy and topsy-turvy’ world of the Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka’s “The Forest of a Thousand Daemons.” Obasanjo’s immediate response was a curse that it was Abdulkareem’s life that was ‘jaga jaga’ and not Nigeria. He went ahead to ban the song from our radio stations. The ban was inutile as the song, with its four other remixes continues to be a blast till date! That was Nigeria 19 year ago.

What Abdulkareem saw 19 years ago in “Nigeria Jaga Jaga” is nothing compared to what the present ruiners have turned the nation to. Nigerians today no longer hear gunshots but the sounds of bazookas in the hands of bandits, terrorists, kidnappers and killer herdsmen that have laid the country waste! At a time, there were rumours that the nation’s security outfits had to pay a huge sum of money to buy off one of the arms in the hands of bandits that posed a huge threat to the Presidential Aircraft of the then President, Muhammadu Buhari.

So, if today, Abdulkareem sings: “Seyi, tell your papa country hard/Tell your papa people dey die/Tell your papa this one don pass jagajaga/Seyi, how far?/ I swear your papa no try/Too much empty promises/On behalf of Nigerians, take our message to him/Kidnappers dey kill Nigerians/”, is that not the naked truth? If the artiste goes ahead to say: “Seyi, try travel by road without your security make you feel the pains of fellow Nigerians/You dey fly private jets, insecurity no be your problem…”, is that not a good challenge, and is he not just stating the obvious?

Even the blind could see that Seyi Tinubu is not just the favourite child of President Tinubu, he qualifies as the nation’s Assistant President, given the receptions he gets anywhere he travels to. Some visiting state governors are not accorded as much protocols and attention Seyi gets whenever he visits any state. Videos of his presidential convoys as the spoilt son of the president ‘tours’ the states of the Federation speak volumes of the influence of the son over his absentee President of a father!

At a time, Seyi was reported to be attending the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting until wisdom prevailed and his father excused him. Nigerians have no doubt about the fact that Seyi is the nation’s ‘Son Excellence’, the unelected ‘Assistant President’ of Nigeria. Unarguably, the boy is more powerful, more visible and wields superior powers than the loiters around Aso Rock and many aides of the President.

That being the case, what is wrong in asking the President’s son to take the message of our pain and agony to his father, our tormentor-in-chief? What is the position of the Holy Book, the Bible, about the father being in the son and the son being in the father (John 14:11)? Whoever else could have done the job of a go-between in this circumstance between a deaf Presidency and a suffering populace more than the favourite son of the President?

What then is the colour of the problems of the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC), and its monitoring-spirit unit known as the Directorate of Broadcast Monitoring, in banning Abdulkareem’s latest song from our airwaves? Whose interest is NBC serving? And if we may ask again: what threat does “Tell Your Papa” constitute? Why is it that every dissenting voice is considered an insult to the imperial President Tinubu, who keeps behaving like the proverbial king’s executioner that dreads the presence of the sword near his own neck?

The art of protest songs is as old as human agitation for a better society. Music and politics, many opined, appear inseparable. As early as 1931, Florence Reece ((April 12, 1900 – August 3, 1986), the wife of a miner and unionist, Sam Reece, wrote the song, “Which Side Are You On?” The song was in solidarity with the miners of Kentucky, who were in battle with the exploitative mine owners. The bold lady wrote the song on an old calendar she found in her kitchen after State agents who were after her husband harassed her and her children throughout the night.

In 1964, Bob Dylan, the 83-year-old American singer, released “The Times They Are A-Changin”, Bob Marley gave us “Get Up Stand Up” in 1973. Gil Scott-Heron sang “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” in 1971 and our legend, Fela Anikulapo Kuti used the instrumentality of music to torment bad leadership in Nigeria. The one fondly called Abami Eda (the weird one) troubled both military and civilian administrations in Nigeria to no end. He extended the whip to Africa and the entire world. His “Zombie” (1977), “Beast of No Nation” (1989), and his 1980 “I.T.T. (International Thief Thief)”, are many examples of revolutionary protest songs by the prolific musicologist, the best and most daring of his epoch. To date, Fela’s name rings as the dominant voice of the one crying in the wilderness for a better Nigeria.

Though the Nigerian nation went after Fela on many occasions as he was jailed, whipped on the road and had his house burnt and his mother Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti killed, Fela was not deterred. Rather than kill his spirit, the State harassment propelled Fela to higher heights, and almost three decades after he died, Fela’s music remains evergreen.

Nigerian leaders need to learn. Those in government need to listen, read and be schooled! If those in NBC are lettered, they would have found wisdom in the assertion of scholars on the interwoven nature of music and politics.

For instance, on March 28, 2014, the Cambridge University Press reproduced in its online platform, the article titled: “Fight the Power: The Politics of Music and the Music of Politics.” That piece had earlier appeared in An International Journal of Comparative Politics, Volume 38, issue 1, 2003, pp 113-130. In the article, it is stated that “Popular music has a long and varied association with politics. It has provided the soundtrack to political protest and been the object of political censorship; politicians have courted pop stars and pop stars …” We must add, however, that that is what leaders in sane climes of the world where dissenting voices are accorded their due respects as agents of social change, do!

Has NBC gone to check how that indiscretion on its part has promoted Eedris Abdulkareem and his latest song? Has that regulatory body asked itself, the same question Florence Reece asked 94 years ago when she penned: “Which Side Are You On?” After banning “Tell Your Papa” from our airwaves, has NBC been able to ban it from the internet and our subconscious?

And as we await the return of President Tinubu from his France trip to Aso Rock Villa, may we all rise and tell the President say: Presido, country hard/ people dey die/This one don pass jagajaga/ / We swear, Presido, you no try/ Na lie I talk?

News

Why We Expanded Presidential Amnesty Scholarship Scheme — Otuaro

Published

11 hours ago

October 26, 2025

Editor

Otuaro (middle) in a group photograph with the PAP foreign scholarship students in the United Kingdom after an interactive session in London on Saturday, 25 October, 2025.

The Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Dr Dennis Otuaro, has expressed his unwavering commitment to ensuring that more indigent students and communities of the Niger Delta benefit from the PAP scholarship scheme.

He stated this while explaining what informed his decision to expand the scheme and increase formal education opportunities for poor students, and to build a huge manpower base in the region.

A statement issued by Mr Igoniko Oduma, Special Assistant on Media to the PAP boss said Otuaro spoke during an interactive session in London on Saturday with the beneficiaries of the scholarship initiative deployed for undergraduate and post-graduate programmes in universities across the United Kingdom.

The engagement, which was at the instance of the PAP boss, provided an opportunity for the Office and the scholarship students to discuss issues pertaining to their welfare and challenges with a view to addressing them.

Otuaro said that while in-country scholarship deployment was 3800 in the 2024/2025 academic year, the figure increased to 3900 in the 2025/2026 and foreign scholarships were about 200.

He attributed the increase in deployment to the massive support of President Bola Tinubu and the Office of the National Security Adviser.

Otuaro stressed that he was greatly encouraged by the President and the NSA, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, and that he knows how impressed both of them are concerning the PAP initiatives, which align with the Renewed Hope Agenda.

He reiterated his call on the students to justify the huge investment in their education by the Federal Government by studying hard to make good grades.

He also urged them to conduct themselves and be responsible ambassadors of Nigeria while in the U.K, stressing that “you will be adding value to your families and communities when you complete your programmes successfully.”

The PAP helmsman said, “We want the scholarship programme to impact more students and communities in the Niger Delta. That’s why we have expanded it and increased formal education opportunities.

“We want you to take this opportunity very seriously so that the government, too, will be encouraged. I know how much support His Excellency, President Bola Tinubu GCFR, gives to the Presidential Amnesty Programme.

“Mr President and the National Security Adviser (NSA), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, are very impressed with what we are doing. On your behalf I would like to, once again , thank His Excellency and the NSA for giving you this life-changing opportunity. We are confident that Mr President and the NSA will continue to support us.

“The knowledge you are receiving in your institutions today is to enable you plan yourself and prepare for the future. Whatever knowledge you gain cannot be taken from you.

“So as PAP scholarship students, we expect responsible and good behaviour from you. Government is investing heavily in you and you have the obligation to justify the investment. Be agents of change and avoid acts of mischief while in the U.K.”

News

OPINION: A ‘Crazy’ African Nation, Where Citizens Eat And Drink Football

Published

12 hours ago

October 26, 2025

Editor

By Tony Erha

It was in October, a semi-summer-month and twilight of the year that ushers in the chilling and extreme winter. A nonagenarian woman gave me a friendly smile that revealed cheeky dimples. As I bowed respectfully to her ripened age, she offered a leathery hand for a handshake, which I received warmly, returning her infectious smile. For a youth who prays for longevity shouldn’t deprive the elderly of the walking stick. I had helped her, carrying a furred handbag to our seats on a night-long intercity bus, from Istanbul to Ankara, in Turkey, the Balkan nation, where we stopped over, in year 2004.

She spoke Turkish rapidly, whilst I retorted in a passable and incoherent Turkish language that ‘I don’t speak the official language of the only country of the world that is located on two continents; Europe and Asia. “You American?” She asked in English. It was obvious that my jeans, necklace and a fez cap that I upturned, in the manner of the Yankees, might have portrayed me as one. “No. I am a Nigerian”, I said, dragging the words. “You Nee-jay-rian!” she exclaimed, whilst I nodded confidently. Then she was elated; “Okocha Jay-Jay!” She spoke to others in the bus that clapped and hailed. I wondered why a 91 years-old-woman, was so passionate about football and one of its heroes, as if she was a youth.

At her request, an old video of a football match showed the mesmerising display of Austin ‘Jay Jay’ Okocha, viewed on a television set affixed to the bus. There were instantaneous excitement and catcalls each time Okocha, the great football ‘talisman’ from Nigeria, did his ball flips and dribble-runs that displaced his opponents, earning him one of the few (if not the greatest) football entertainers in football’s history. It was as if the video tape, recorded in his notable plays in Besiktas, a Turkish club side, was a live match. So great was Okocha’s global fame that the old woman relived again; “Jay Jay Okocha is a dangerous footballer, who’s full of tricks on the field of play. The only trick he didn’t do with the ball from his bag of football artistry was to play on top the swimming pool”. In Mustafa Ataturk’s nation, footballers of Nigeria’s decent had and still make their soccer very eventful.

Victor Osimhen, the leggy playmaker and striker with a dye-hair like the white mushroom head, who recently renewed his contract with Galatasaray, a Turkish top team, is also a Nigerian, who has received the applause in the peninsula country and across the globe like Jay Jay Okocha. Candidly, Oshimen, the goal mechine, who is a tonic to the Turks and football fans across the world, also does the unimaginative with the round leather, but certainly not with the same fascinating skills of Jay Jay! But the Turkish fans are readily tilted to football fanaticism.

Victor Osimhen

If it’s ‘fanatic-fans’ in Turkish football, it’s certainly ‘supporters hooliganism’ in the United Kingdom (UK), where association soccer (football) was founded in 1863, with similar kicking games played in Greece, China and Rome since 2,000 years. In UK, football is played with fanfares, pool betting and media vuvuzela. English soccer is a gainful entertainment industry raking in huge gate fees from plays, promotions, television and media razzmatazz, which is often imitated in Nigeria, with passions and ‘occult’ following. So worrisome was the ‘social hype and lawlessness’ youths and others attach to English soccer that security operatives have constant migraine fighting soccer addiction and frequent street brawls.

Jay Jay Okocha, Nwankwo Kanu, Dan Amokachi, Taribo West and other Nigerian stars, that once dominated and currently rule other foreign clubs, opened the floodlight of extremist football following into the country. Once upon a time, the then Prince Charles (now the king of England), was spotted (with young boys) playing the game, inside the Buckingham Palace, all wearing jersey number ’10’ with Jay Jay Okocha’s name inscribed). That the number-one-global-royalty adored soccer by wearing the jersey of a footballer from a third-world African nation, somewhat illustrates that which is often said about soccer being more than a mere sport. ‘Football Tripper’, a British online news porter, describes soccer as “oxygen” to numerous men and women. In Brazil, the South American nation, there is a deity called “Soccer”, as well as it’s a vivacious Reggae, a unique music genre in Jamaica.

Still, it is food and sups in Nigeria. In this Africa’s most populous nation, with plentiful viewing centres and liquor spots, there are live television football tournaments and soccer video games, with consumable food, alcoholics, carbonated drinks and some ‘unlawful substances’ that are at the behest of business owners and ‘intoxicated’ fans.

In what soccer dramatics came to know as ‘the Dammam Miracle’, viewing centres, beer parlours and restaurants were instantly sold out in the country, in 1989, after ‘footbocrazy’ Nigerians, stormed the streets in prolonged wild celebrations. For the Nigerian U-20 football team, at the FIFA World Youth Championship, held in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, came back from a four-goal deficit to level up and defeat the Russian counterpart, making the Nigerian team the first to come back from a semi-final to win a FIFA tournament. Soccer, indeed, is a crazy sport in Nigeria. Once upon a time, a man had shattered the screen of his expensive television, because Austin Jay Jay Okocha, his favourite star, had lost a penalty in a continental match!

It’s said that football, especially when the Nigerian national teams of men and woman play, tends to unite Nigerians than other national blights that turn them apart. Now, the current national fanaticism is for the Victor Osimhen-inspired Super Eagles, to qualify for the 2026 World Cup gala, even though it has to go the extra obstacles of playing more legs, whereas the team had frittered the early opportunities to qualify.

And sensing that most Nigerians care less of the economic woes that plagued them, but for the football fad, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the nation’s President, would cash-in to feed their ago awarding huge cash to high profile football tournaments and wins, like he recently accorded the Super Falcons, the female national team, for achieving a similitude of the Dammam miracle, to bring home a coveted African Cup of Nations (AFCON) trophy!

News

Ex-soldiers Fume Over Lifetime Benefits For Sacked Service Chiefs

Published

17 hours ago

October 26, 2025

Editor

The sacked Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, and two other service chiefs, Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Hasan Abubakar, and Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla, are set to receive generous retirement benefits.

The benefits include bulletproof vehicles, domestic aides, and lifetime medical care.

Their exit follows President Bola Tinubu’s appointment of new service chiefs on Friday.

General Olufemi Oluyede has been named the new Chief of Defence Staff, while Major-General W. Shaibu takes over as Chief of Army Staff.

Air Vice Marshal Sunday Kelvin Aneke becomes the new Chief of Air Staff, and Rear Admiral I. Abbas the Chief of Naval Staff. The Chief of Defence Intelligence, Major-General E.A.P. Undiendeye, retains his position.

The President’s Special Adviser on Media and Public Communication, Sunday Dare, said in a statement on Friday that the removal of the service chiefs was in furtherance of the Federal Government’s ongoing efforts to strengthen Nigeria’s national security architecture.

According to the Harmonised Terms and Conditions of Service for Officers and Enlisted Personnel in the Nigerian Armed Forces, signed by President Tinubu on December 14, 2024, the service chiefs are entitled to substantial retirement packages upon disengagement.

The document stipulates that each retiring service chief will receive a bulletproof SUV or an equivalent vehicle, to be maintained and replaced every four years by the military.

They are also entitled to a Peugeot 508 or an equivalent backup vehicle.

Beyond the vehicles, the package includes five domestic aides — two service cooks, two stewards, and one civilian gardener — along with an aide-de-camp or security officer, and a personal assistant or special assistant.

They will also retain three service drivers, a service orderly, and a standard guard unit comprising nine soldiers.

The benefits extend to free medical treatment both in Nigeria and abroad, as well as the retention of personal firearms to be retrieved upon their demise.

However, while officers of lieutenant-general rank and equivalents are entitled to international and local medical care worth up to $20,000 annually, the benefits for the service chiefs, though not stated in the document, are believed to be considerably higher.

The HTCOS reads, “Retirement benefits for CDS and Service Chiefs: The following benefits shall be applicable: one bulletproof SUV or equivalent vehicle to be maintained by the Service and to be replaced every four years. One Peugeot 508 or equivalent backup vehicle.

‘’Retention of all military uniforms and accoutrement to be worn for appropriate ceremonies; five domestic aides (two service cooks, two stewards, and one civilian gardener); one Aide-de-Camp/security officer; one Special Assistant (Lt/Capt or equivalents) or one Personal Assistant (Warrant Officer or equivalents); standard guard (nine soldiers).

“Three service drivers; one service orderly; escorts (to be provided by appropriate military units/formation as the need arises); retention of personal firearms (on his demise, the personal firearm(s) shall be retrieved by the relevant service); and free medical cover in Nigeria and abroad.”

However, the policy specifies that such entitlements apply only if the retired officers have not accepted any other appointment funded from public resources — except when such an appointment is made by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

In such cases, the officers, according to the document, will only receive allowances commensurate with the new role rather than a full salary.

Retired soldiers protest lavish perks

Reacting, some retired soldiers decried what they described as the luxurious benefits and entitlements reserved for service chiefs and senior military officers.

They lamented that junior personnel continued to suffer neglect and unpaid entitlements despite years of service to the nation.

The retired officers expressed frustration over the disparity in welfare and treatment between senior and junior ranks within the military.

One of the leaders of the discharged soldiers demanding their owed entitlements, Sgt. Zaki Williams, expressed frustration over the entitlements reserved for the service chiefs.

Speaking in an emotional tone, Williams, who claimed to be speaking for more than 700 soldiers in his group, said many retired non-commissioned officers had been abandoned despite dedicating their lives to defending the country.

He said, “I don’t really understand how our people in Nigeria do things. The people at the top always do things to favour only themselves. They don’t care about the poor or the junior ones who sacrificed everything.”

The retired sergeant recalled that government officials had made several promises to improve their welfare, but none had been fulfilled.

“Since the day they made those promises to us, we went back home and didn’t hear anything again. Everything just ended there. We’ve been waiting till now, but nothing has happened,” he added.

Williams said the situation had left many of his colleagues demoralised and divided over whether to continue pressing for their entitlements.

“Some of us said we should protest again, but others refused. We told them that day that we were not going for another protest. If the government wants to help us, they should help us. If not, we’re done,” he said.

He also accused senior military officers of frustrating efforts by the defence ministry to address the concerns of retired personnel.

According to Williams, life after service has been extremely difficult for most of them who retired voluntarily or were discharged without compensation.

“How can someone retire after years of service and still not get their entitlement? Many of us can’t even build a house. The senior officers have houses, cars, and everything good, but the rest of us have nothing,” he said.

He added that the little compensation given to some was not enough to rebuild their lives.

“If they give you N2m today, what can you really start with it in this country? You have children, family, and responsibilities, yet you can’t even afford a plot of land,” he said.

Expressing disappointment, he said most junior officers had lost faith in the system.

“We’ve handed everything over to God,” he said quietly. “We’ve cried and done our best. They promised us, but in the end, it’s still zero. We haven’t seen anything. That’s why many of us are now silent.”

Another retired soldier, Abdul Isiak, lamented that promises made to retired personnel had remained unfulfilled, leaving many struggling to survive.

He said, “All you said they would give to them would be done promptly, and they are more than what we need to sustain our lives. This is very unfair. We have suffered a lot, and they’re yet to give us our entitlements after leaving the service. What is our offence? Is it because we are junior officers?”

The former sergeant said the senior officers continued to enjoy generous retirement packages while lower ranks were denied their due benefits.

“We are preparing for another protest for them to pay us. This is very bad,” he said.

(PUNCH)